Target 2010 - Phil Hare (D-IL)

Phil Hare was elected to Congress as part of the 2006 Democratic sweep brought on by America’s general dissatisfaction with George Bush’s policies. The anti-war movement aided by liberals in the main stream media had certainly strived to make Bush toxic by linking him with the rising number of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and the allegations of US mistreatment of terror suspects. While that certainly didn’t help Bush, his downfall, like his father, had more to do with fiscal policies and the perception that he was disconnected from the true concerns of the American people.

Phil Hare came from a blue-collar family which is a plus to anyone running for public office in Illinois. He worked at the Seaford Clothing Factory in Rock Island where he spent thirteen years. During the time he worked at the Seaford Clothing Factory, Phil served as a union leader and as President of the Unite Here Local 617, an offshoot of the AFL-CIO. He also served six years as an Army reservist.

Proving that Illinois really doesn’t ask much of their elected officials, Mr. Hare is a product of Alleman High School in Rock Island and had earned an Associates Degree from Black Hawk College in Moline. An Associates Degree is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by community colleges, junior colleges and some four year colleges after completion of a course of study usually lasting two years. Since Hare doesn’t expand on the studies he completed to earn his degree, I can only assume it was Liberal Arts, P.E. or perhaps underwater basket weaving; the favored subject of limited achievers.

Hare began dabbling in politics when he ran as an Alternate Delegate to the Democratic Presidential Convention in support of Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts in 1980. One of the three delegates for Kennedy, Hare and his fellow Kennedy supporters were defeated by the delegates running in support of Jimmy Carter. In 1982 Phil left his union position to help Lane Evans, who was running for the US Congress against Republican incumbent, Tom Railsback. Hare and Evans had been close friends since 1976 when they worked together as volunteers for Senator Fred R. Harris' campaign for President. Surprisingly, Tom Railsback was defeated in the Republican primary by conservative challenger, State Senator Kenneth McMillan forcing Evans and Hare to shift gears and turn their attention to McMillan. Evans would defeat McMillan in November, and in appreciation, appointed Hare as district director.

For the next twenty-four years, Hare worked as an aide to Evans and assisted him mostly in the areas of constituent issues and labor problems. As an aide to Evans, Phil Hare oversaw the closings of Case International Harvestor plant in East Moline and the Maytag plant in Galesburg. The closings of these major businesses and many others resulted in a loss of more than 2,200 jobs in the 17th district as US companies began to flee over-regulation and high taxes in the US for countries that were a little more appreciative of the role successful corporations play in the health of an economy.

After Evans announced his retirement in March of 2006, Hare announced his candidacy to succeed Evans. Hare received the endorsement of Lane Evans and in a special Democratic caucus of precinct committee members from the 17th Congressional District, Hare defeated the four other candidates and became the district’s Democratic candidate for the 2006 Congressional race where Hare focused much of his campaign on labor issues. Since Illinois is not a right to work State, many people of the 17th district are union members (whether they like it or not) and let’s face it, labor issues in a State that loves to drive business away with union interference is an important issue for the people left looking for work. Apparently his promises worked and Hare defeated Republican Andrea Zinga in the general election of 2006 and ran unopposed in 2008 counting on America’s dissatisfaction with Bush and an easy ride on Obama’s coat tails.

Hare has followed Evans’s lead and his voting record is not just Liberal, it is very Liberal. That shouldn’t surprise anyone; especially since the mask came off shortly after the election and people found that Hare was not merely a Democrat, a Liberal or a union man….he was a Progressive and would become one of the founding members of the of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and an ardent supporter of the Progressive Caucus’s Socialist agenda.

Hare is an unapologetic supporter of Labor Unions and unfortunately, Labor Unions are for the most part, unapologetic supporters of Socialist ideology. Curiously, Hare doesn’t appear to be an unapologetic supporter of the actual union members and has openly supported Card Check, a provision in a recently proposed bill that would strip union members of the right to cast a secret ballot in union elections. The secret ballot was the membership’s only protection against intimidation and scare tactics used by corrupt and violent union leaders and while this maybe something a former union President would love to offer his “friends” as a gift, it is certainly something the rank and file is overwhelmingly opposed to.

Hare also voted for the recent healthcare bill even though he had previously stated that he would never support healthcare legislation that did not include, in his words, “a robust public option”. In a recent interview, Hare was asked about the Constitutionality of the healthcare legislation to which he replied: “I don't worry about the Constitution on this to be honest…I worry about the thousands of people that are dying because they don’t have health insurance." As video clips of his dismissive comments about our Constitution made their way across the internet and onto the news, Hare responded saying that his statement was taken out of context and what he really meant was that he was not concerned about the constitutional challenge to the legislation. I’m not so sure about his explanation because as the questioning continued, the interview started to ask what part of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to require people to purchase health insurance but Hare interrupted him and blurted out "I don't know! I don't know!... But at the end of the day I want to bring insurance to every person that lives in this country."

Hare mistakenly added that the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. An unidentified voice on the tape reminded Congressman Hare that the line he just quoted was from the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution but that didn’t matter much either. He waved his hand and said “either one.” Either one? This may come as a shock to the Black Hawk doctor of underwater basket weaving but he swore an oath to support and defend one of those documents when he became a Congressman and most of us think it would be a really good idea if he knew which one it was and what it actually says.

Why would we expect Mr. Hare would have actually read the Constitution when he obviously hasn’t read the bill he had just voted for? When asked if he had read the bill he told the interviewer that he had read the bill three times. Really? To have read the 8100 pages of the bill and the corresponding documents that would have to be read for the bill to make sense in the time the House leadership allowed before the vote, one would have to read one page each minute and then comprehend what it means in totality. That, my friends, would be a feat for a bona fide speed reader let alone a union boss with a two year degree in arts and crafts (or whatever it was).

Clearly Mr. Hare has no respect for the Constitution; no respect for union members and even less respect for his constituents if he can vote for a bill that he could not possibly have read. In fact, to vote for a bill that he openly opposed on principal simply because Nancy Pelosi told him to, Phil Hare must have very little respect for his own convictions and that is something that worries me most of all.

Paul

Is the Healthcare Bill Constitutional?

Is the Healthcare Bill constitutional? This may well be the most important question ever asked in the United States and many of those States are asking it. The premise dictated by Congress is that they derive their authority to enact the Healthcare Bill through both the Supremacy Clause that states that Federal Law supersedes State law and the Commerce Clause that gives the Federal government the authority to regulate interstate commerce.

The argument in favor of the Supremacy Clause is a moot point if the law that Congress passed is found to be unconstitutional. Since the Healthcare Bill relies heavily on the funding accrued through a mandate that every American must now buy healthcare insurance, the obvious question is what actually constitutes commerce? The Congress has obviously mistaken their need to mandate that all Americans purchase health insurance to fund their program with the constitutional authority to mandate that all Americans purchase health insurance. Since the Healthcare Bill is an empty shell without that mandatory purchase, the Congress and the President are not likely to give this up easily.

So what is commerce? According to Merriam-Webster, commerce is: “the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place”. Franklin Roosevelt broadened the definition of commerce during the Great Depression to facilitate government control of food prices. For this FDR used the argument that even the production of food products for personal consumption could disrupt the interstate price of those commodities. His rationale speculated that if too many people began growing their own foods, then the national price of food would be adversely affected, causing further economic harm. Since the nation was in a State of economic emergency, people were willing to try anything to stop the bleeding and Roosevelt got his way.

FDR’s interpretation of the Commerce Clause allowed him broad powers and he used them to create a multitude of new agencies that began the process of seizing powers that clearly belonged to the individual States under the banner of aggressively attacking the Depression and putting people back to work. Of course, the left loves to argue that is was those measure that saved the nation from economic ruin even though the enlightened and educated know that the Depression didn’t end until World War II destroyed every manufacturing center in the world except those safely located in the United Stated and the carnage killed and wounded more than 600,000 previously unemployed Americans; Americans that would no longer add to the unemployment rolls no matter what Roosevelt did.

More than seventy years later, the U.S. Congress is still using that perverse interpretation of the Commerce Clause to broaden the power of the Federal government even further. Today, as in Roosevelt’s day, for something to be considered commerce, an action had to take place and someone would have to buy, build, sell or grow something before we could claim that commerce existed. Now Congress wants to go even further and Congressional Democrats are struggling to make the case that since not buying insurance could adversely affect the commerce of healthcare, it may be lawfully regulated by Congress through the commerce clause. It was a stretch of the imagination and a violation of the Constitution when FDR claimed Congress had the right to regulate the actions of private citizens because those actions “might” interfere with interstate commerce. The idea that Congress can now regulate the inactivity of private citizens because that inactivity will interfere with a level of commerce that didn’t exist until Congress passed a healthcare bill that required the unwilling involvement of all US citizens goes beyond unconstitutional and could very well be criminal.

Why do I say criminal? Well, let’s look at the crime of extortion. Again, the Merriam-Webster definition says that extortion is: “the act or practice of extorting especially money or other property; especially: the offense committed by an official engaging in such practice”. Ok, what does it mean to extort? Merriam-Webster says that is: “to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power”.

The Healthcare bill dictates (forces) all Americans to purchase healthcare insurance. Failure to purchase health insurance will result in a fine (obtain money) of up to 2/1/2% of that persons income. The Internal Revenue Service (an official) will be responsible for confirming that you have adequate insurance and will levy and collect fines if you don’t (intimidation). Why did they use the IRS and not the massive new agency that will direct healthcare benefits and expenses? Because the IRS is the only Federal agency that can collect fines without proof of guilt or due process; forcing the afflicted citizen to prove his innocence rather than the government having to prove your guilt; a must in every other area of law.

Well, what do you know! The penalties and collection of fines established by the healthcare bill fits the definition of extortion perfectly! After all, the President and Congressional Democrats were clear that this was not a tax or else the President would have broken his promise of not imposing a middle class tax increase. Even if they called it a tax, Congress only has the Constitutional authority to raise taxes to pay the bills of the Republic and to provide for the defense of the nation but those taxes must be uniform and a tax only collected from those that do not purchase health insurance is certainly not uniform.

As with many things, once this finds its way to court the question of intent is bound to arise. Some unwitting Democrats have already provided us with the answer to that. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) says the bill is meant to correct a maldistribution of wealth….and you thought this was about health. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says it’s “more about diet than diabetes” indicating that they intend to use the bill to exert unconstitutional control over the general population. Representative Alcee Hastings (D-FL) invoked a quote from Thomas Edison during a meeting of the rules committee that “there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something”. He then added that “all the Republicans are want to talk about are the people” as if a duly elected representative of the United States Congress can act without the consent of the governed and still claim constitutional authority. Even worse was the moronic statement made by Representative Phil Hare (D-IL) who said “I’m not worried about the Constitution; I’m worried about the thousands of people that are dying because they don’t have healthcare”.

It looks like the intentions have been clearly established here. Max Baucus wants to play Robin Hood, Nancy Pelosi wants to pick your lunch for you and I’m not sure how that squares with Alcee Hastings equivalent of one of the ruling elite saying “let them eat cake” in response to the unpopularity of the legislation. Bringing up the rear we have Phil Hastings that never even heard of the Constitution even though he swore an oath to support and defend it. And these are the people that want us to believe they have the authority to demand you buy insurance or else?

No, there is no constitutional authority for Congress to demand that you purchase a private product of their choosing for your personal use, using your money to purchase it. I’ve heard the left wing spokesmen on radio and television trying to equate this mandate with auto insurance. Well, there is a big difference. The insurance requirement is only mandated for people that choose to purchase a car for use on public roads (an act of commerce). There are no insurance requirements for vehicles that are operated solely on private property and there is no mandate for people that do not own a car to have to purchase insurance to help drive the cost down for those that do. The auto insurance mandate is required by the individual States, not the Federal government and anyone that has bothered to read the Constitution knows that the States and the people retain all powers not specifically given to the Federal government by the Constitution; including the right to regulate the operation of a motor vehicle within their respective States.

Paul